Looking Too Closely
by everybreatheverymove
Summary: Set following the season eleven finale, April reflects on her and Jackson's relationship and how far they've come to be where they are now. Contains mild angst. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything remotely attached to this show, only the basis of this story.

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This was originally set out to be a tragedy, but the writing took a turn and things just kind of took off from there. I went with it, and ended up here. So basically, it's a narrative on their relationship from the get-go, and tackles the way I think April is currently feeling right now. So, please let me know if you enjoyed this, and hopefully it's in-character and great enough for you to either like and/or one day read again.

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 _Set following the season eleven finale, April reflects on her and Jackson's relationship and how far they've come to be where they are now. Contains mild angst._

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 **LOOKING TOO CLOSELY**

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The dusky, navy tinted air of the silent Seattle night kept her calm, with one arm thrown around her waist as some sort of shield, the other by her side with a folded piece of paper in her hand.

She walks closer towards her fear, throat dry from the burn of the liquor she'd consumed prior to hitching a ride from Arizona. It had stung, but she'd liked it, had enjoyed the sour feel of buzzed liquid pouring through her system, numbing her emotions.

As a child, April Kepner had been told to fear strangers.

Do not talk to grown ups unless you know them, or unless you're accompanied by an adult. Do not give them your name, or accept any gifts they may offer you.

As a teenager, she'd been instructed to come out of her shell a little bit more.

Go out, meet people, make some friends.

This would require her to talk to strangers. She tried, but to no prevail. Nobody wanted to be friends with silent, naïve and, more often than not, awkward farm-girl April Kepner.

As an adult, she'd learnt at this point to make her own decisions and fend for herself. She moved cities, states. She changed, flourished, developed.

She put one foot in front of the other, took baby steps instead of leaps, jumped over pavement cracks in her search of one day becoming a renowned surgeon. It would happen. She would make it happen.

Ohio was nothing but a wanted distant memory by the time she'd settled into her Seattle apartment, in a room adjacent to a fellow surgical resident with a pixie cut and big round eyes Margaret Keane would adore as her muse.

Reed was her first true friend, save for the transfer student from Canada in eleventh grade. He hadn't stuck around.

She was loud, brought out April's hidden inner neurosis through witty remarks, taught her how to confront strangers better than her sisters ever had.

Unexpectedly, her second true friend had only appeared once her first had died, gone to spend some time with her good God, probably chatting his ear off about how great she was, or rather could have been.

Reed was gone, but her passing had made room for April's probable soulmate.

Jackson Avery wasn't a stranger.

She had known him for two years before they grew closer, before she actually willed herself to open up to him.

He was an intern in her year, a resident right alongside her. But his knack for keeping things to himself and using sarcasm as a defence in times of crisis hadn't warranted her interest at first glance.

It didn't matter that he was charming when he wanted to be, or a Grade-A jock when he hung around the other guys. It didn't matter if he was the visual, living and breathing, representation of a son of an unnamed God (one that wasn't her own, one that would probably turn her onto another faith).

What mattered was his growth, his falling composure when he lost a friend right when she lost her only.

The loss of two resident hopefuls brought them together, shifted their life paths closer together and shattered all differences.

He became her closest confidant, her trusted protector, her shield when her arms weren't strong enough. And she was his friend with all good intentions and no vouch for personal gain.

"Do you think we'll be okay?"

She has asked him on the evening of Reed's funeral, when his jacket was still wrapped around her pale shoulders to keep her warm from the cool springtime breeze.

Jackson had nodded after a moment, keeping his gaze focused on the wooden bar top for just a little bit too long.

"Probably."

It was good enough back then. She wouldn't have asked for anything more. How could she? What human being could ever know such a thing?

Will we survive this? Are we going to live? Tell me we'll be safe, please?

She had settled for probable safety, for the expectation of uncertain things to come. He couldn't predict, but he could defend her, protect her, if not just like this.

"Thank you." She had smiled the best she could, pushed a strand of soon-to-be-dyed red hair behind her shoulder and leant against his arm.

April stops walking when she reaches the end of the cobbled path, soles of her feet psychosomatically sore from walking, legs tired from curling up beneath her frame every night.

She tightens the arm around her body, pulling on the edge of her faded green coat and dropping her shoulders when a gust of wind passes by her, tickling her cheeks and eliciting goosebumps over her flushed skin.

Her God would forgive her.

That was what she told herself every day, when the sunlight broke and she had to face the day, had to move on and face the fact that her one trusted person wasn't going to call her back.

She would have to face facts one day, but that fated day would not be anytime soon.

Jackson Avery wasn't a stranger, but she'd had to learn to like him, even had to change herself in the smallest of ways in order to love him completely.

She was no longer afraid of strangers anymore. How could she be?

If familiarity could break her soul, destroy her after she'd given her all, then what harm could a stranger possibly cause her?

Glancing up at the breezy clouds reflected in the darkening sky, April closes her eyes.

Had she wasted her whole potential in God's eyes? Had she ruined her path? Had she ruined his? Maybe there was a reason he left her the way he did.

Time had somehow brought them even closer over the years.

When it was the two-year anniversary of their friends' deaths and she was once again sat alone on a barstool, he'd joined her. He'd ordered his usual Scotch, nudged her side teasingly, but with no trace of a grin on his perfectly curved lips. Different cities could never change him.

She'd admired him while he drank, long fingertips wrapped around a clear glass, knitted brows concentrating his attention onto his liquor.

He was ideally perfect, the exact contrast of what she had once considered herself to be. But her confidence had changed over time, through spending time with him, through learning like a student to accept herself, flaws and all. And the idea of them one day being "something" wasn't as crazy as she had once thought it could be.

"You ready for tomorrow?" Jackson had asked her, hint of a stricken nerve in his bright green eyes as he faced her, stung by his own mention. Was he nervous?

"Ready as I'll ever be." April nodded to his question, clearing her throat when his gaze intensified.

She could have swore his eyelashes flickered, lowering his eyes onto her lips for only the briefest of seconds.

It wasn't attraction. It wasn't the fine line between friends and lovers snapping, splitting into a thousand pieces continuously, fate telling them to take a chance. It wasn't fate telling them to leap instead of crawl.

It was the alcohol. Of course it was.

He ordered food, waited for her to start talking random nonsense as he regularly enjoyed her doing.

She pulled on the hem of her pink blouse, teeth digging into her bottom lip as she pondered her future, their future. Would they even be friends one month from now?

Tomorrow was the beginning of the end. She'd either pass or fail, there was no escaping her fate.

There was no escaping his either. But she already knew that he'd pack up and leave as soon as he got the chance. Even Mark wouldn't be able to keep him in Seattle.

"We're falling apart." She had headed off into some rant about illness and failing by the time his food arrived.

He'd ducked in straight away, shaking his head as she had continued, "No, see, you gotta forget about that. Focus on your own game." Jackson had raised up a finger, free from the hand that wasn't holding his precious shiny fork. Gastronomy was his divinity.

To this day, what had happened afterwards was almost a blur.

Three words that defined their relationship forever resonate in her memory, but the physical altercation that followed had altered their significance completely.

 _Me and you._

 _We're a pair._

 _Together._

He had spent a good two years shielding her from pain the best he could, fault for a few gags he'd involved himself in for the sake of a laugh at her expense. She had forgiven him for being a boy scout.

But the one time she had leapt to his defence, fought for him instead of vice versa came at her own cost. She had stopped his attempt to defend her, instead fighting her own battles through his mirage.

The sandy-blonde hair coloured resident from another hospital had swung at him, and April hadn't waited a second longer before springing into action that night. She had been becoming a trauma surgeon with a purpose.

She was no longer April Kepner who would sit on the sidelines. She was April Kepner, changed and developed, all grown up and now a woman who took charge. And Jackson had contributed quite generously to her newfound adrenaline.

Making their way back up to their rooms for the night, to sleep off fatigue and rest up after that incident, he'd accompanied her to her hotel room door, further proving his worth as her trusted friend, missing half.

 _Keep me safe._

 _Follow me anywhere._

 _Maybe it's you._

"I'm a soldier!"

He'd never quite understood what she meant that night, the words passing him by nonchalantly.

"Yeah, I still don't know what you mean by that." He had shaken his head, chuckled with bemusement at her pumped-up energy.

And before she'd even given a second thought to her actions, her small fists were clawing at his sweater, curling her fingertips around the strings of his hood, pulling him down briskly to her level and forcing her lips against his own.

April Kepner was taking a leap instead of a step.

And the fine line from friends to more-than had just been untimely crossed forever.

He'd had given in right there if it hadn't been for those four words lingering between them, creating tension but building momentum from her to him.

"You're a virgin."

 _You are a virgin._

She had been for the longest time, since birth of course, through a tumultuous adolescence that featured no boyfriends or takers because she was promised elsewhere, to Him.

"Yes, but-" She continued, arms thrown around and lips dry and craving. Her eyes widened as she pulsated, moving into his body rhythmically to show him just how much she was ready, done, finished being the good girl.

She'd taken a pledge to abstain from sex until marriage, to cherish her body for all it was worth until her husband would one day come along and sweep her off her feet, loving her earnestly.

But that night wrecked all hopes she'd ever had of finding a man gullible enough to assume that she'd one day be good enough for him, be worthy of finally receiving love.

April Kepner had never been loved.

April Kepner had never been in love.

That night, April realised that changing her hair from brown to red, and paving a mildly dangerous career for herself would never make her whole, could never fulfil her the way she so desperately wanted to be completed in that moment.

But he could offer her that release.

And she selfishly had wanted him to be her first; her first lover and first taste of what love could one day be.

"Jackson." She'd bitten her bottom lip, tucked it in against her teeth, swirling her tongue against the padded flesh, feeling her insides boil in anticipation when he seemed to come around.

His eyes had darkened from a light jade to a deep emerald, and she was a goner.

"I'm okay." She nodded once, keeping her gaze focused on his as her arms wrapped around his neck hungrily.

 _Please._

 _Show me._

 _Be the you to my me._

He had barely let her finish her sentence before moving his already dropped hands from her hips to her waist, creasing the blouse she wore and stumbling her through the doorway to her room, with a kick of the door shut behind them.

They'd kept the lights off, too eager, too desperate to give the brightness of their actions a second thought.

"Tell me to stop." He had reversed her words, with both hands cradling her face as he shifted her backwards onto the neatly made hotel bed.

She'd pulled away to duck her head, hands flying to the top of his jeans.

"No."

"You're sure?"

Her shoulders raised, small fingers dancing around his belt buckle, pulling on the leather strap. She let it slide open, flicking out the button of his trousers and pulling the zipper down past his growing erection.

"Kiss me."

April Kepner was jumping into this. She was a trauma surgeon. This was her calling.

Head first. No barriers. Go large or go home. Fight. Work. Survive. Live.

Jackson had only wondered about her insistence for a moment, thought reel out of control when she slipped a tightened pale hand down his boxers.

"Jesus."

He'd noticed her flushed cheeks, the way she bit her lip and innocently batted long lashes up at him, as though she was stealing a cookie from the barrel.

"April."

"Kiss me." Her voice had weakened as she waited for him to move, flinch, touch her.

The hands on her face roamed down to her sides, pulling up on the edges of her loose pink top, and she held her breath when Jackson drew the blouse over her head and disposed of it on the dark carpeted floor.

He'd raised a brow, held her stare while lowering his hands to his own sweater, pulling it away from his body and dragging his t-shirt beneath alongside it.

She removed her fist from his trousers and unfastened her own jeans with ease, despite her shaky fingers and ragged breath.

When he'd slipped his pants to the floor and they'd rid of shoes and socks and anything remotely misplaced, she crawled backwards onto the bed, head resting comfortably against the flush pillows.

To this day, she remembers the sound of her bra unclasping at his fingertips, the moans escaping past her pert lips as he ran kisses down her neck, her bare chest.

Maybe this is where she should have left him. Maybe they never should have breeched that barrier.

When he'd eased her aching, let her feel and crave and watch him caress the insides of her thighs with the sweetness of his breath, she'd called out his name, struggled to keep her face straight out of some kind of embarrassment.

She was still neurotic and timid April Kepner, after all.

"Are you okay?" He'd kissed her, keeping his face above her own, hands dancing along the outline of her panties, palm against her soaking flesh.

She had swallowed then, with one simple nod and a lean up to touch him, hand reaching for the back of his neck to kiss him again.

 _Keep me safe._

 _Be the you to my me._

 _Together._

Once they'd been rid of all underwear and she'd handed him the condom from his wallet on the floor, she'd finally felt it.

She was changed, but for better or worse wasn't known to her.

His brows creased as he readied her, olive-skinned fingers digging into the skin of her lower back as he cradled her cream body.

"Tell me if-"

She'd silenced him with another kiss, wrists meeting around the base of his skull, thighs clenching by his side as he entered her on demand, when she pushed forward and sighed half in pain, half in pleasure.

It was strange, but no stranger than a desire to taste blood after cutting yourself. If they kept going, the gentle ease would ache away and she'd be fine.

He'd make sure of it. She'd depend on it.

It had been selfish, really, to use him for her own comfort, to fill her own throbbing need.

The mixed breathing patterns are almost engraved in her memory, and she closes her eyes at the thought, at the recollection of what it felt like, of what they felt like to reach that state of blissful nirvana.

"That was…"

"Good. Good." He'd breathed.

"Yeah. Yeah." She'd agreed.

Back then, she had no idea what she was talking about, she was feeding off of what he said. He knew. He wouldn't lie to her. It sure didn't feel like it had been bad.

And the way their future panned out would only prove that.

Of course, after that, time had only made things more complicated.

More sex in a new city. Professional failure. Awkward acknowledgements in hallways. Death of a close mentor. Moving to a new place for the broken-hearted. No goodbye.

It had pained her at first, when she'd gone back to her childhood home in Ohio and had to keep a straight face whenever her mother took her to church on Sundays, when he hadn't so much as sent her a text message since her departure.

Things were tense when she came back, of course further fuelled by the fact that she had no knowledge he was even still in their own home of Seattle.

Awkward acknowledgement only multiplied, and sexual tension only intensified.

He'd stare, she'd avoid his gaze.

She'd try to explain her decision to re-virginize herself, feigning the existence of their tryst, and he'd roll his eyes.

She'd take a step back whenever he approached her in an empty room, he'd take two steps forward.

It was his eyes that had done her in, she recalls. His eyes and that constant hint of a smirk forever toying on his lips.

"Do you want to get married?"

Today, she'd laugh if it hadn't been for his unintended prediction.

You will marry me someday. There'll just be a load of crap in the middle.

They happened again, and she'd felt guilty almost every time after the deed.

 _What would God think? I'm betraying my own promise. I'm insulting my own faith. I'm cheating on my future husband._

But it had felt so good that it kept going until the prospect of babies, and marrying out of wedlock had thrown a spanner in their extracurricular activities.

His admission of feelings couldn't stop them ending.

 _Does he even love me? Do I actually love him? We wouldn't be able to raise a child in a loveless marriage, would we?_

 _What would God think?_

They'd finished again, but she was never sure if they'd ever even begun in the first place.

He'd slept with an intern who insulted her to get his game back. She'd dated a paramedic with a heart of gold.

He'd kept the relationship going despite the obvious redundancy. She'd gotten engaged to her Prince Charming despite the inevitable stupidity.

She'd used Matthew as a charade, to fill her dream of being a married woman in love.

He'd used Stephanie to fill his dream of being with April.

And he'd only realised his tardiness when wedding vows were in sight and she was wearing white and he could have easily ruined her life with three little words.

 _Does he even love me?_ Yes. He does. Completely. The way you wanted him to.

"I love you, April."

The whole speech will never leave her, how could it? It paved the way for her future, for where she is now (despite how unhappily married she currently finds herself).

She'd ran with him down to the border of Nevada and California to cement their love. She'd given up her dream of a perfect man in hopes that her former best friend was her probable soulmate.

He was. He is.

But marriage had never come easy to them.

His mother was intrusive, her mother was a meddler.

Her faith ran unconditional, his ran inexistent.

They'd have children some day, and they'd tell them about their story in detail. The transition from acquaintances to soulmates was their history.

But life enjoyed playing cruel tricks, and science hadn't been too kind on them either. Maybe it was divine intervention, a spout of karma for being inconsiderate that day back in the barn.

But karma wouldn't take their child. Only God would. Only science would. And this is where their paths clashed instead of tethered once again.

She'd healed all on her own, after accepting that was what done was done, after accepting the comfort of his arms and his reassurance that not matter what he'd be there for her.

She'd healed after crying, after hurting, after bleeding from the inside out.

He never had though. He'd never recovered after losing their son only minutes after birth.

Science was cruel to them, but her God hadn't been her friend that day either.

After that, they'd needed to lean on each other as their own support systems. But she'd only taken and never returned the help, the love.

He'd been there, helped her heal, made her better, even further proved his worth as he one true partner.

They'd reconnected physically, through passionate kisses and love-making in his car.

But their emotions were still unreachable to them, to each other.

He was hiding it, she was faking it.

And then life only got worse, if at all possible.

Months pass where they don't talk about their son like they should have done, where they ignore those horrible, grief-propelled days of their marriage.

She'd shipped herself off to war not long after.

When things got rougher and death took more closeness, April Kepner was a full-fledged trauma surgeon with a winning streak and the backbone of a fighter.

But she wasn't herself.

Fuelled by what the war in Jordan brought her over the course of a year and ignorant to her husband's wants and needs, she'd reenlisted, determined to change the world or at the very least offer her services.

It was her calling after her son's death, her way of making herself feel again. But this never quite settled with her husband, who had long tried to held her lick her wounds, heal her sores.

He'd let her feel again. She'd told him so herself.

Her new conviction to travel to foreign continents and save lives wasn't who she was. It was who she was becoming.

And only a small piece of her true self remained; the part that loved her husband whole-heartedly.

She just wasn't sure how to show it anymore, or if she even could at all. Their tether had ruined her, their marriage her breaking point. They were fated to be ruined. Everybody was in her eyes, a decision she'd come to after her son's passing.

Grief had shelled who she used to be, mistaking her newfound confidence and leadership skills for her true character. She wasn't right, wasn't herself.

Jackson had noticed.

And thus had begun the beginning of their potential end.

Sitting herself down on the grass in front of the small gravestone in her focus, April unwrapped the crinkled piece of paper in her hand as she curled her legs beneath her, stretching her muscles once again, dirtying her jeans on the mud.

"Hey, little guy." She smiles faintly, ducks her head with a slight sniffle to clear her throat.

Glancing up at the gravelled stone, she holds her breath for moment.

"It's been a while." The redhead raises both eyebrows, taps her right index finger against the paper in her hand, "I'm sorry about that."

The word she'd written a few days ago are virtually absent now, too focused in on her own memories.

"It's your dad." She loosely curls up the corner of her lips, "He… I love him, I do." She nods once, twice, three times. "But I'm pretty sure he thinks I've stopped."

Would God forgive her for talking like a sinner? Would Samuel forgive her for using his father as her advocate once again?

"I've loved him since before I probably even knew I did, but- That doesn't mean I don't appreciate him as much as he needs to be appreciated. I do."

April crumbles the paper up in her fist, stares blankly ahead at the stone.

"I'm just having a little trouble showing it. You think you could help me, little guy?" She briefly smiles, resting a hand against the cold rock. "He says he won't be here if I go away again, and I'm kind of terrified."

He isn't replying. He isn't calling her back. He isn't meeting her gaze whenever she catches him longing.

"I need this, I need my vocation. Because I need to get over you, to find something worth living for. And I know your dad should be everything but he isn't. And that's not his fault. It's mine. He isn't everything anymore because he isn't whole, and that's my fault. I wasn't here. I wasn't a wife helping her husband."

Her hazel eyes water but she avoids actually crying, willing herself not to.

"I know he doesn't believe in what I believe in, but if you could just- Just let him know that I'm his, and that I love him, and that I want to make this work, then-"

She falters, pauses when her breath runs out. Pulling her arms tighter around her body, she nibbles at her bottom lip, ignores the memories of Jackson doing the same.

"I might leave, but I'll always come back. I'll come home because you're here, and your dad is here, and even if he hates me right now, I'm going to keep coming back to him."

Because he's her soulmate, and there's no probability about it.

Her voice breaks as she continues, head tilted and eyes dripping with tears. Too late. Too fast.

"I'll come home every freaking time, and even if he doesn't want to hear it from me, I love him. I belong with him. He belongs with me. Your dad is my person, Sam. Okay? He just needs to give me a little more time. That's all I'm asking for. Just a few more minutes to figure myself out. And then I'll come back to him, and I'll be me. I love him, and can't function without him, and I'm gonna need you to let him know that."

She runs the pad of her thumb over the folded piece of paper neatly before placing it down against the base of the infant's grave, smoothing her fingertips against her lips as she stands up, ready to leave him for the day.

Two years is too long.

"I don't hate you, you know?"

The voice makes her stand still when she's turned around, one hand in her pocket, the other resting over her tingling lips.

How long had he been standing there?

"I'm just not sure we're in love as much as we once were."

"I am." She replies quickly, swallowing her breath and feeling her throat strain from the earlier burn.

"Good." He hitches a brow, takes a step closer, shirt crisping beneath his jacket as he shoves his hands in his jeans' pockets.

Jackson keeps a fair distance, glances back at the stone behind his wife.

"So am I." His gaze shifts to her face, pained by her tear stains and flushed cheeks. "I guess we're just a little messed up, then."

April nods, licking her lips and lowing her attention onto the muddy ground. "Me and you, both."

They can heal, right?

One day, they can get back to who they once were.

Probably.

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THE END

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 **I'm trying to write more frequently but it's proving to be a challenge due to a lack of inspiration. Bare with me.**


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